September 1, 2013

At 21 years-old Vincent-Lapointe has quickly earned a reputation for being one of the world’s most dominant female canoers.

In only three senior ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships, the Trois Rivières, Quebec product has won six gold medals, also topping the podium this weekend in the C-2 500m with Otterburn, Quebec’s Sarah-Jane Caumartin.

It is the third straight year Vincent-Lapointe has scored two gold medals at Worlds.

In the C1 Vincent-Lapointe finished in 51.330 seconds, almost seven-tenths of a second ahead of Bulgarian Staniliya Stamenova who clocked 52.028 seconds. In third was Zsanett Lakatos of Hungary at 52.527. In fact, less than nine-tenths separated 2nd through 4th in an increasingly competitive women’s canoe field.

Pursuing the Olympic stage

The sport of women’s canoe is not currently on the Olympic programme. However with nine different countries represented in a tightly contested C1 200m women’s final, and Canada at the top with Vincent-Lapointe, fans in this country must hope the event will be added to a future Olympiad.

“I didn’t have a great start but I charged it and kept going strong to the finish,” Vincent-Lapointe said of her individual race. “In the end I finished with the best possible result.”

In the C-2 500m the Canadian pair finished in a time of 2:03.004 ahead of second place Hungary at 2:04.842 and Chile rounding out the podium at 2:07.876.

An outspoken advocate of women’s canoe joining the Olympic programme, Laurence Vincent-Lapointe is certainly making statements on the water.

History will be made in 2016 when Rio de Janeiro, Brazil hosts the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, marking the first time that a South American country will welcome the world to an Olympic Games. It is also just the third time that the Games will be held in the southern hemisphere, following Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000.